Reeve turns off respirator

Actor Christopher Reeve appeared before a New York audience and proudly pointed out a severed connection: the ventilator he has had to use since the horseback riding accident that left him paralysed was no longer there.

"To breathe normally, to be able to smell ... anything that makes you feel more normal is psychologically so important," the actor told a crowd at the annual benefit for his Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.

In February, Reeve became the third person in the United States to undergo a surgical procedure called diaphragm pacing, which involves threading tiny wires through small incisions in the diaphragm. The wires connect electrodes to a control box outside the body. The device allows him to breathe without a ventilator for hours at a time.

Reeve had demonstrated the device, which works like a pacemaker, earlier this month in an interview on the ABC television network. Tuesday's event was billed as his first public appearance using the device.

Arriving on stage, Reeve noted that usually he is seen "wearing a necklace of corrugated plastic."

"I'd like you to notice that I'm not wearing it tonight," the 51-year-old announced. Ever since he was a little boy, he noted, "I've been trying to avoid getting dressed up and wearing a necktie. Now I get my wish."

The Superman actor, who was paralysed from the neck down in 1995, said he'd had some trouble learning to use the device.

He tried to breathe and eat simultaneously, only to choke on a piece of lettuce, then on a piece of tuna fish. He learned that he had to perform one function at a time.